The refreshing third serving of the season’s triumphant culinary trio is starting to split wide open, and the region with alarming rates of cancer and cardiovas-cular disease should eat up.

Watermelon, popularly paired with blue crabs and corn on the cob, is coming into peak harvest on the Eastern Shore, albeit a bit slow after a cool spring and late summer start.

Although harvesting lags this year by 7 percent on a five-year average, the slow start isn’t hurting yield or flavor.

“This year has been a very good year for watermelon production,” said Shelby Hurley, 2014 Mar-Del Watermelon Queen.

A high yield, in fact, has kept price down, she said. “Overall, Maryland and Delaware watermelon farmers have had a healthy crop.”

Hurley, 21, lives in Mardela Springs on her family’s Hurley Farms, and is making rounds this summer at festivals, fairs and state events promoting the health-smart melon.

“Watermelon is practically a multivitamin, containing vitamins A, B6 and C, not to mention potassium,” said Hurley, who graduated last spring from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, where she studied agriculture.

A cancer fighter

Water content is 92 percent, making watermelon a hit at outings on the hot and humid Eastern Shore. The plant, regarded as both fruit and vegetable, has properties that researchers believe could aid the prevention and treatment of some cancers and benefit the cardiovascular system.

The sweet thirst-quencher is high in lycopene, and accounts for more U.S. intake of the antioxidant than any other fruit.

Studies have shown that lycopene protects against prostate cancer, the second-most common cancer and second-leading cause of cancer deaths among men in the United States.

In Maryland as of 2012, the incidence was 139.1 per every 100,000 men. Nationally, the rate was 126.1 per 100,000.

In Wicomico County, the death rate of between 27.5-32.3 men per 100,000 far exceeds that of the state’s 25 per 100,000, and the national rate of 23.0 per 100,000, according to five-year National Cancer Institute data through 2012.

“Watermelon has been the lycopene leader in fresh produce for quite some time,” said Juliemar Rosado, marketing communications manager at the National Watermelon Promotion Board.

“This year, we have quite the popularity in watermelon juice as drink for athletes, as it is great for recovery, hydration and has vitamins A and C,” she said. Her agency along with the National Watermelon Association is providing the fruit to Marine Corps Marathon finishers in late October, she said.

Three key points

Watermelon also is a popular and wholesome fit with cholesterol-free corn on the cob — minus the butter. A 3-ounce serving of steamed blue crabs, about six, has a cholesterol content over 80 milligrams. Sodium content in blue crab meat is 340 milligrams, so skip the salt and butter, say nutrition experts.

Important to consumers are health, value and versatility — “three points we like to get across when promoting watermelons,” said Hurley, traveling to events this summer where corn, crabs and watermelon are on the menu.

Most Maryland planting is concentrated in Wicomico, Carolina and Dorchester counties. Western Sussex County claims most production in Delaware.

About 27 percent of watermelons harvested in Maryland the first week of August, according to the Maryland Department of Agriculture. That means that local melons should be at farmers and produce markets and roadside stands another month or longer.

“This time last year we were at 31 percent,” said Vanessa Orlando, a department spokeswoman, citing early August reports. The region’s 5-year average is 34 percent, she said.

“There’s 70 percent to go” in the Maryland harvest, Orlando said.

dgates@dmg.gannett.com

On Twitter @DTDeborahGates

A thriving business

The number of watermelon farms across Maryland is up slightly, to 303 in 2012 from 273 five years earlier, according to data at the U.S. Department of Agriculture. More significant is growth by almost 1,000 acres, to 3,278 from 2,295. In 2013, growers in Maryland and Delaware harvested 192 million pounds of watermelon with a farm gate value of $23 million, according to 2013 data from the National Agricultural Statistics Service.